July 17, 2014

Nashville Hot Chicken

It's a Nashville specialty -- fried chicken that's slathered in a super-hot, spicy glaze. There are a few joints in Nashville that are known for it, including Prince's, Bolton's and relative newcomer Hattie B's.

It is seriously hot -- the last time we had some on a visit to Tennessee to see Zach's family, we made a beeline from Bolton's straight to Jeni's ice cream to cool down our fiery gullets.

Even if you hadn't heard of Nashville Hot Chicken a couple months ago, odds are -- if you read food magazines -- you know about it now. Why? Because no fewer than four magazines have featured this dish in the past two months (and two of the recipes are from Hattie B's)! There it was in the June issues of Saveur, Bon Appétit, and Food Network Magazine. Then this month, there's a feature on it in Good Housekeeping (not a mag that's in our regular rotation, but we happened to see a copy).

It's gettin' hot in herre! Anybody hungry for some chicken?*

Clearly, Nashville Hot Chicken is having a moment. (And Hattie B's has an excellent publicist!)

So last week, it had a moment at our house.

We were having our friends Will and Scott over for dinner one night last week. It was the perfect chance to try out a hot chicken recipe.

However....

While there were aspects of each of these recipes that we liked, there were also things we wanted to change. We wanted to do a wet brine instead of a dry salt-and-pepper one. Then we consulted with Zach's friend Rosemary, who lives in Nashville and has perfected her own take on hot chicken. She told us that the paste you brush on the chicken at the end has got to be made with lard.

So we picked and chose. Ultimately, we essentially combined the first part of Saveur's recipe with the second part of Food Network Magazine's. Our adapted/hybrid recipe is below.

The process we ended up with is actually pretty basic for fried chicken: overnight buttermilk brine, egg dip, flour dredge, oil fry. The key is in the final step, the spicy coating you glaze on the hot chicken when it comes out of the fryer. And let's talk about that spicy coating: lard, brown sugar, cayenne, garlic, paprika? How could that not be delicious?

So we brined, drained, dried, dipped, dredged and fried. We used a large Dutch oven to fry, and we had to work in batches. Some of our pieces of chicken got a tad burned. You can avoid that by not overfilling your fryer/skillet/pot with chicken. So just make sure your chicken has plenty of room in the oil. (Also, if you're lucky enough to be able to do this outside, do it. Our grill has a stove top eye on one side, which we used for our Dutch oven. Frying anything can be a spattery, greasy, smoky mess.)

How did our Nashville Hot Chicken turn out? Well, to be honest, not quite as good as actual Nashville hot chicken. We ended up with very fine fried chicken in a spicy sauce. It was definitely tasty -- delicious, even. But it was on the greasy side, and to be completely honest, we could have used more spice! It just didn't have that four-alarm sizzle, that outrageous OMG-ness, that you get from the real deal.

Don't get us wrong -- this was really good. We think you should make it yourself! But mostly it just made us long for our next trip to Nashville, to get some more of the genuine article.

Oh and one more thing: No matter which hot chicken recipe you try, there's only one way to serve it: with pickles and store-bought white bread to soak up the heat.

Have you tried Nashville Hot Chicken? Tried making it at home? What'd you think? Let us know in the comments!

Combine buttermilk, ¼ cup cayenne, 3 tbsp. each granulated garlic and paprika, 2 tbsp. onion powder, and 1 tbsp. sugar in a bowl; whisk until smooth. Add chicken and toss to coat; cover and chill at least 4 hours or up to overnight.

The next day, drain chicken, rinse, and pat dry; season with salt and pepper.

Make the dip and dredge: In a bowl, whisk together the milk, eggs and hot sauce. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour and 2 teaspoons sea salt.

Dredge the chicken in the flour mixture, then dip in the milk mixture, then in the flour mixture again, shaking off the excess after each step.

Heat the vegetable oil in a deep-fryer to 325 degrees F. Set a wire rack on top of a rimmed baking sheet and set aside. Working in batches, lower the chicken into the fryer and fry until crisp, 15 to 17 minutes for breast quarters and 18 to 20 minutes for leg quarters. Remove the chicken and let it drain on the rack.

Make the spicy coating: Carefully ladle the lard into a medium heatproof bowl and whisk in the cayenne pepper, brown sugar, 3/4 teaspoon sea salt, 1 teaspoon black pepper, the paprika and garlic powder. Baste the spice mixture over the hot fried chicken and serve immediately; garnish with pickles.

Comments

It's a Nashville specialty -- fried chicken that's slathered in a super-hot, spicy glaze. There are a few joints in Nashville that are known for it, including Prince's, Bolton's and relative newcomer Hattie B's.

It is seriously hot -- the last time we had some on a visit to Tennessee to see Zach's family, we made a beeline from Bolton's straight to Jeni's ice cream to cool down our fiery gullets.

Even if you hadn't heard of Nashville Hot Chicken a couple months ago, odds are -- if you read food magazines -- you know about it now. Why? Because no fewer than four magazines have featured this dish in the past two months (and two of the recipes are from Hattie B's)! There it was in the June issues of Saveur, Bon Appétit, and Food Network Magazine. Then this month, there's a feature on it in Good Housekeeping (not a mag that's in our regular rotation, but we happened to see a copy).

It's gettin' hot in herre! Anybody hungry for some chicken?*

Clearly, Nashville Hot Chicken is having a moment. (And Hattie B's has an excellent publicist!)